Resident Evil: Scorched Earth
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Raccoon City had been destroyed with a thermobaric missile, sterilizing the city and the infection that had gripped it. All because of Umbrella. All because of their pursuit of profit and indifference to human life. Having survived the nightmare along with the rest of Echo Six, Caroline knew that even if Umbrella was brought to justice, the scars would remain forever.


_When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money._

Alanis Obomsawin

* * *

**Scorched Earth**

The morning of October 3rd had been as cold as the mornings of the 1st and 2nd. As in, not actually that cold.

Caroline "Willow" Floyd sat in the tent that she and the rest of Echo Six shared, her right hand guiding the mouse attached to her laptop, the left with a cup of green tea. Not coffee, thank you very much caffeine addicts, but just enough to keep her warm. Because outside the tent, it wasn't that cold – Arklay County had experienced a heatwave in the last week of September that had made the Raccoon City autumn feel more like a Raccoon City spring. It had continued into the first few days of October, and given that the city had been destroyed by a thermobaric missile yesterday, Caroline imagined there was some latent heat. Or, not, but still, she could still see the blast in her mind's eye, as the squad's chopper had carried them away in the last few minutes. She could still see the blinding light that had made its way through her hands and closed eyes. She could still feel the wave of heat blasting against her skin, like she'd been standing in front of the oven. Here, in the cold of the tent, it was almost morbidly comforting. A little bit of warmth added to that of the tea.

But still, she felt cold – the wireless was crap, but she was able to access some online news articles on what was already being referred to as "the Raccoon City Incident," or "Raccoon City Disaster." Almost every article had a picture of the thermobaric blast that had consumed the city, and none of them had so far printed anything from the city itself. The walking dead that had shambled through the streets, trying to kill her and her team. And barely any of them had discussed the Umbrella Corporation either – most of the discussion now was whether the usage of such a weapon on American soil had been justified – low radiation was still more than none, after all. She frowned, taking another sip of the tea, while idly listening to the radio.

"…as the country enters its third day of mourning, White House spokesman Neil Freeman addressed the…"

She stopped listening even more as the usual platitudes were given. Thoughts and prayers…all avenues being considered…the president stands by the "sanitization" of the outbreak site…rumours concerning Umbrella Inc. cannot be confirmed or denied…quarantine remains in effect…"

_The hell it does. _She took another sip of the tea and read an article from a site named Bartbrite. Its angle was that aliens had invaded Raccoon City, and that the government was covering it up. Why the government would cover up aliens through a cover story that involved the bloody walking dead, Caroline had no idea, but still, the writer of the article obviously knew more than her.

"Caroline."

Scowling, she exited the article, and scowled even more when the wireless began to give out.

"Caroline!"

She looked up and groaned inwardly. "Hello, Crispin."

He smirked. "Not 'sir?'"

"I thought we were off-duty." She looked past Echo Six's commander at the two CDC goons clad in biohazard suits. "We still doing this?"

He nodded. "You were meant to report in at 0840. Instead it's 0920."

_Fuck_. She forced a smile. "Guess we still are on duty."

"Yep. We are."

"Great," she groaned. She rolled up her right sleeve and gestured at the CDC staff. "Well, come on then. Feel free to take my blood quantum while you're at it."

One of the two glanced at Crispin.

"She's American Indian," he said.

_Cree, jackass_. Nevertheless, she obliged as one of the two men stuck a needle in her and began withdrawing blood, causing her to wince. Not so much at the pain, but at the sight of blood in of itself. She'd been in Raccoon City for close to a week, and had seen more blood in that period than she had in her entire career in the Army, period. Blood that was much darker and 'mushier' than the blood being taken from her arm right now, but still, blood.

"All done," said the man. He handed the needle to his colleague and applied a swab to the entry point.

"All done," Caroline murmured. "As in, all done all done? Or are you going to keep taking blood samples even though we're all fine?"

The man got up. "Can't be too careful."

"Guys, we know a fair bit, okay? The T-virus-"

"Ma'am, leave the disease control to us, okay?" The two men headed for the tent's exit, one of them giving Crispin a look. "All of you. Tomorrow. And when I saw all of you, I mean all of you."

Crispin gave him a mock salute. "Yes sir."

"And no leaving the camp."

"Oh, so it is a camp," Caroline said. "That an admission?"

The CDC man gave her a look, though she could only imagine the details behind his goggle mask. Her scowl however? That was clear for him to see.

"Well," Crispin said, after the two CDC men had left. "That could have gone better."

"They're CDC Dee-Ay, we're Army. We don't owe them anything."

He sighed. "Okay, first of all, you don't need codenames out of the field."

She shrugged. "Sounds better than Crispin."

"And second of all, yeah, we kinda do." He pulled up a seat and sat opposite her at the desk. "I mean, chances are we're not infected, but you saw what the crap did to Raccoon City. If it gets out…"

"It's already got out," Caroline said. She met her squad leader's eyes. "You know it has."

He didn't say anything. She wondered if she was thinking what she had. Because October 1st, she and her squad had slept through the day, exhausted as they were from fighting against the living dead, B.O.W.s, and Umbrella goons. October 2nd was when they'd first reported for blood samples and seen what was going on in the FEMA camps that had been set up around Raccoon City. Some people had made it out before the bomb hit. Some of those people were infected. And with the infected…

CDC had held the poor sods down. Army men and women had put bullets in their heads. The National Guard tried to keep the press at bay and stop the beraved from screaming too much. The death count was already over 100,000, and unless they got this under control, it could rise very quickly, very fast.

"Caroline."

Not that it made it much easier, she reflected. Seeing the people who'd made it out. Every one so similar to the creatures she'd killed in the city.

"Caroline."

The way bullets had torn through their flesh, as they just kept coming. How her blade had entered their skulls, finally downing them. How she could smell their breath on their skin, and the smell of gunpowder as she and Echo Six had fought the living, and-

"Willow!"

She blinked and took a sip. To her horror, Crispin had turned her laptop around, before turning it back to face her.

"Aliens?" he asked. "Seriously?"

She slammed the laptop shut. "Internet's crap."

"Well, yeah, I saw." She didn't say anything, so he continued. "Listen, you okay? I mean, I don't know why you're reading up on Raccoon City since we were there."

She got to her feet. "I'm fine," she said. She took the tea cup with her.

"Um, yeah, about that," Crispin said. "Y'know, normally I wouldn't go down this route, but in addition to the blood samples, Command wants us all to take psych evals."

Caroline groaned, but nevertheless knelt down and began washing the cup out at a water dispenser.

"Yeah, my thought exactly. Still, undead weren't exactly in the job description, and look, maybe they've got a point."

Caroline grit her teeth.

"I mean, not every day you're surrounded by zombies, trying to tear your throat out, before running into even worse, and, like, being forced to kill dozens of people who used to be alive, and-"

"I said I'm fine!"

A silence descended over the tent. Crispin got to his feet, and looked down at both her, and the teacup that she'd dropped on the ground from her shaking hands. Still squatting, she looked up at him, steadying her breath before she spoke.

"Like I said, I'm fine," she said.

"Yeah, okay," Crispin said, wearing a frown. "You can tell the shrinks that, but you want to try that B.S. on someone, don't try it on me."

She got to her feet. "You really going down that road?"

"Yes, I am. For you, myself, and the rest of the squad."

_Holy shit, you really mean it. _She watched as he headed out of the tent. _Since when did you ever go for that crap?_

"…thank you, there will be no more questions."

She laughed bitterly. The radio. She'd forgotten all about it. The laughter continued, until she put a hand over her mouth to steady her nerves.

Some things, she couldn't forget about.

* * *

It was sunset, and the land was silent.

She was wearing a jacket over her fatigues as she sat on the grass. One hand held a thermos of tea – earl grey this time, the green wasn't doing it for her anymore. The other hand held a knife – not standard issue, but one with a wooden handle with elaborate carvings. She threw it into the grass beside her, picked it up, and repeated the process over and over. Her eyes weren't on the blade however, but rather the crater before her, and the mountains beyond.

Raccoon City was gone. Apart from a few skyscrapers whose shells had survived the blast, there wasn't really anything left to suggest a city had ever been here at all. She didn't know the full details, only that the missile used had a tonnage more powerful than the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Fighters had unleashed a missile barrage at the most densely infected areas, plus used surface-piercing missiles to get at underground targets. Then, the big one had come. On October 1st, 1998, at 0607 hours, Raccoon City had been wiped off the map. And she'd seen it. She'd bloody seen it, and now was looking over its ruins, in a camp that wasn't even being called a camp.

_An emergency station, _she thought. _Isn't that what it's being called?_

She threw her knife down again and took a breath. There was something foul on the air. She might have said that the land was weeping. That Mother Earth's children had harmed her with a wound that would never heal. She could say that…or she could say that even if the biohazard that had consumed Raccoon City was contained (and right now, that was still in the realm of "if"), it was still a given that nothing would ever live her again. Certainly not in her lifetime. The city was gone, and the Arklay Forest might die with it. And just considering it now, under an autumn sunset…

"Hey."

She took a breath. Company. Great. She thought the squad had got the idea by now that she didn't want it.

"So, um, yeah," Crispin said, as he walked over. "Like, I get that you want to be alone…"

"I do."

"…but everything else aside, I'm kind of obliged to at least check up on you. Y'know. Paperwork and all that."

She smirked and picked up the knife. "You're right. You caught me. I was just seconds away from ending the torment of my meaningless, futile existence."

He didn't smile. He also didn't look at her, but rather, at the knife she was holding.

"Hello?" she asked. "Suicidal girl asking for help here."

He squatted down. "That's not your usual knife."

"Oh right, you see the knife, but not…" She took a breath, and handed him the hilt. "No. It isn't."

Crispin took it and looked at it. The blade. The hilt. The Canadian syllabics on it. At her.

"I carry it," she said. "Don't use it for combat, but it's like a memento."

"A memento?"

"Of home. Of my mum." She sighed, and sipped some coffee. "We made it together when I was sixteen. Said I should always carry it with me, reminder of who I am and where I come from." She saw the way her comrade was looking at her and took the knife back. "Sounds pretty stupid, right?" She put the blade in its hilt.

"Actually, it doesn't."

She gave him a small smile. But looking back over the irradiated wasteland that had been Raccoon City, it quickly faded.

"Willow," Crispin murmured. "Why Willow?"

"I dunno. Why Dee-Ay?"

"Sounds cool."

She looked at him. "You chose your Echo Six codename because it sounds _cool_?"

He shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Wow." She took another sip of tea.

"And? You?"

She grunted. "Reasons."

She didn't go into them. She'd joined the Army at eighteen, and given her lanky frame, she'd earned the nickname of "Weed." In hindsight, her drill sergeant had been pushing her, same way he'd pushed everyone else, but back then, it had hurt. She'd had eighteen years of enduring calls like "redskin" and "go back to the reservation" every time she left said reservation, but "Weed?" She wasn't having that. Still, getting into Special Ops and being assigned to Echo Six, she'd reflected that she needed a better nickname. Hence, Willow. She was good with a knife, and she was still dwarfed in muscle mass by the likes of Crispin and Harley. But "Willow?" That sounded good.

What didn't sound good was the sound of another helicopter making its way across the sky. The metal beasts were all over the place – above Raccoon City, and around Raccoon City. She shivered, and Crispin must have noticed, because he patted her on the shoulder.

"Come on," he said. "Sienna has got drinks out. Party time and all that, and she needs some drink buddies."

She remained seated.

"Hey, Caroline, come on. I like alone time as much as the next guy, but-"

"You think it'll even matter?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

She met his gaze. "All this. The last week. One-hundred thousand people dead, a city destroyed, and a gaping wound in the fabric of the Earth. Do you think it'll matter?"

"I don't follow."

"Crispin, come on. We know what Umbrella did, and we know their goons tried to kill us."

"Um, yeah. And?"

"And? Umbrella's still operating. Everyone's discussing 'the incident,' but no-one's discussing the perpetrators. I mean, I know Umbrella's big, and this country's built on business and all that crap, but…" She sighed, and took another sip of the tea. "Y'know, I can't help but wonder. If Umbrella were dissolved today. If every one of the people who died here…the people I killed in the streets, if their deaths didn't go unanswered…I can't help but think that this is it. That this is what the Arklay Mountain region is going to look like from now, until the end of time, and…" She looked at Crispin. "Go on, say it."

"Say what?"

"Greenie, hippie, Indian mystic, whatever. Been fighting against the undead, and all I'm thinking of is that mankind's found another way to fuck up the Earth, along with itself."

He didn't say anything.

"Go on, say something."

"Caroline, I…" He sighed. "Look. I don't know. There isn't a precedent for any of this…bombs on US soil, corporate paramilitaries, fucking zombies…"

Caroline looked at him. "And?"

He shrugged. "Sorry. Thought I'd have made up something inspirational, or insightful, or inspisightful, or-"

"That isn't a word."

"…but, um, yeah. Got nothing."

Caroline snorted. "Figures." She went to sip more tea, but found that she'd run out of it. Just as Crispin had apparently run out of "inspisightful" words to say, apart from the words he said when he patted her on the shoulder – "we'll save a round for you."

"Yeah," Caroline murmured, as he headed off. "You do that."

She'd run out of tea, and her squad leader had run out of words. Fitting, since she'd run out of hope, and all through her life, she'd never had much to begin with. Poverty and racism did that to a person, and there was only so much catharsis the battlefield could provide. She held her knife in front of her, watching as the setting sun's light was reflected off the blade.

_Have I even ever killed anyone with this?_

She didn't know how many people she'd killed prior to the operation. Less than ten, probably. She didn't know if the undead counted as being 'killed,' but…

…but maybe that was the point. She sheathed her blade and got up, casting a glance at the crater before her, the gravestones that rose above it, and yet another helicopter drifting through the sky. Make a weapon that would create nearly indestructible monsters that would be as hard to kill emotionally as physically. No wonder Umbrella Inc. was the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, if they could sell stuff like the T-virus. Because seeing the results in action, Caroline had no problems understanding why people would want it. Or at least, people who weren't like her. Who, so she hoped, weren't like everyday people. Only problem was, everyday people weren't like Ozwell Spencer, or the people he employed. People who were still running Umbrella as if nothing had happened.

It wasn't her fight, she told herself. The battle now would likely be fought in the courts as Umbrella used every trick at its disposal to avoid responsibility for the horrors she'd seen over the last week. Chances were she'd be dead before the company was brought to justice. _If _it was brought to justice. But then, she'd given up on justice a long time ago. The world wasn't just. It hadn't been just in this land for centuries, if ever. In a just world, she wouldn't be looking at a smoking crater and burnt forest surrounding said crater, wondering if justice would even come for the people responsible in the first place. Looking over the crater, in the trees, for any sign of life. Any sign that the earth here could recover from the carnage inflicted upon it.

She saw nothing.


End file.
